Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Kitchen Renovation

I'm so excited to finally be able to post pictures of our 
kitchen transformation! :)

We've been working on lots of renovations to our house 
ever since we got it.
Lots of painting, fixing, and figuring out cheap ways to make things look 
much better.

The kitchen was one of the worst rooms in the house when we bought it.
I was excited to be able to "fix it up"
but nervous about how it would turn out, knowing we didn't have thousands of dollars to pour into fully renovating everything.

The many years of watching HGTV have paid off by giving me lots of ideas for DIY projects.
Sometimes I think I'm too much of an "over-achiever" and I start projects I wish I didn't have to finish. 
At least I'm happy after actually finishing the projects.
After just finishing the kitchen earlier this week I'm ALREADY on to the
 back deck.  

No break for myself at all.

I think with John going back to school while working also, and our recent loss, I'm just finding it's better (and I'm happier) when I stay busy and achieve things.

I'll post pics and info on the back deck later on. (I also intend to write a post about the miscarriage for those that want to understand what happened, I have to really take time to think that one out though.)

So... on to the kitchen.

First I want to explain what was re-done. First thing was changing the HORRIBLE counter tops. 
We don't have very many before pictures (we lost some "before" pictures of the house, which was such a bummer, but... i'll survive) but I do have a couple.
The counter tops were baby blue, and scraped and nasty. 
I found a kit at Lowe's to re-do counter tops DIY style.
My friend helped with the counter tops and I'm very grateful. It would have been a lot harder to do on my own.
The first step was to paint on the black adhesive coat 
(I know, black... scary!! It was hard to start, knowing I couldn't go back)
then right after you'd use a hand held machine that "shoots" rock chips onto the adhesive
(much like the green things you roll around your yard to fertilize the grass, except in your hand, shooting rock chips)
Then, I had to wait 12 hours so it could dry, but no longer cause after 24 hours it's solid.
After the 12 hours I had to sand the surface down to make it smooth
(my arms were KILLING me after hours of sanding)
Then, you paint on a clear top coat that seals the counter tops. It's worked so well so far. I don't have any cuts or nicks in it. I'm very happy with it! 

Second I painted the cabinets.
I really didn't like the cabinets in there. I always loved bright kitchens and it was so dark before.
I painted them off white and replaced the hardware with chrome handles and spray painted the hinges to match (purchasing the hinges would have been over $100!! Instead, the chrome spray paint was $3... much better)

The cabinets took SOOO long to paint, and so many coats. I was regretting it while working on it, but am very happy with the result now.

Then, i painted the nasty bright blue trim white, and the dirty white walls a nice light sea foam blue/green color.

Lastly, John and I worked on the stone backsplash.
It took forever to actually get to the backsplash... frankly we were both scared to start, worried we'd ruin it. We were both nervous the whole time but were pleasantly surprised with the nice result!
Before we could finish the backsplash John had to mount the microwave over the stove.
(when we moved in there was a horrible yellow range hood that was all rusty underneath)
This was a hard job, but he was a trooper and after a full day of figuring out how to mount the microwave on a wall with no studs 
he finally figured it out!

So...

Now for the pictures!! :)


This was what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house...


Notice the horrible counter tops and not so great cabinets and hardware.




You can kind of see the horrible range hood, and the nasty walls and the horrible window trim that doesn't even match the countertops.







Now I'll show photos of after I did the counter tops and cabinets and hardware and paint (I forgot to take pics of each step as I went)


Here you can see the cabinets with the new hardware (the one unpainted piece of wood on the cabinets was a broken piece we had to fix and I had to repaint afterwords.)
 The walls are the new color and the counter tops are done! 
The tiling is still not done or the microwave yet.




Ready to start tiling!! :)



Marked out the design for the tiles over the sink! 








Next step is the adhering the tiles...


Not finished or grouted yet, but this shows the design over the sink well. We were worried it was too detailed to do, but with the help of my awesome husband we made it work! 






Then we had to grout it all... such a messy process!








I couldn't wait to be done and clean up so I could have my kitchen back! But, it was totally worth it...


Now, for the final product!







Nice new microwave! So much better than that nasty range hood!




I love our new kitchen!!



Such a big change!









Such a big difference, but in my opinion, a great renovation. All for under $600. (You can't even replace counter tops for that little of an amount)
I've been so happy with how it looks
and feel awesome knowing much we did it all ourselves.

Let me know what you think of our "kitchen makeover." 

Like I said, I'll post about the back deck soon! 
That's a work in progress!